When thinking about cyber crimes, it is common to think about illegal hacking into a secured computer system to view or steal information. Others may perhaps think about the creation of computer viruses which are then set loose on networks or the internet to slow down computer systems, tie up communication bandwidth, or erase computer data. Cyber crimes have also expanded to include a range of activities from the stealing of internet service, to inappropriate contact with children or the posting of child pornography on the internet.
While law enforcement officials have become increasingly vigilant for cyber crimes, their ability to track down and catch cyber criminals is hampered by a proliferation of wireless technology which is being used to access computer networks. For example, police officers are often able to identify illegal cyber activity and trace it back to a source location, for example, a street address associated with a broadband modem that has been linked to the cyber crime. Often, however, once the officers investigate the residence or business at the located street address, they find that a wireless access point has been installed at the location and that the people at the residence or business do not own or have the wireless device which was connecting to the wireless access point and committing the cyber crime. Once the people at that location are cleared, the police unfortunately do not have a way to trace the offending device and user which are or were connecting to the wireless access point.
With the proliferation of wireless access points and other wireless technologies, it is becoming even easier for criminals to commit cyber crimes. Furthermore, there is increasingly a cyber component to traditional crimes. For example, more criminals are taking advantage of wireless voice-over-IP technology to have untraceable phone calls. Even terrorists are taking advantage of wireless technology to detonate explosive devices. Sadly, as many as 95% of cyber crimes are believed to go unsolved due to such difficulties, and law enforcement officials are in great need of tools not only to help them identify the source of such threats, but also to locate the perpetrators themselves so that the criminals may be apprehended and the cyber crimes prevented.
Therefore, it would be very desirable to have an economical, flexible, potentially portable, and easy to use method and system for locating a target wireless device.